Decades after the fact, American citizens are still learning about the role our government played in the coups that toppled Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and Salvador Allende in Chile. We pray that Egypt’s new junta proves less murderous than the governments of the shah or Augusto Pinochet.

But this much we know already: The junta that we’ve tacitly accepted in Egypt is the most repressive government there in human memory.

Americans should consider with open eyes our own role in creating the horrors of the last century before embarking on any more experiments in regime change around the world.